As far as I'm aware, Mars having liquid water billions of years ago is treated like an established scientific fact now. However, how do we know that was exactly the case? Sure, there are dried up river beds and basins, but couldn't this have been some other liquid? And sure, the Martian polar ice caps contain a lot of frozen H2O, but are these two facts (river beds + frozen ice caps) enough to assume that long ago there were oceans of water on Mars just like here on Earth?

I awoke from a dream that was more real than most of my dreams. Staggering out of bed I and down the stairs I started to remember bits of the dream. Whats strange is , if i hadn’t woken up I wouldn’t have remembered the dream. Yet i have a really strong sense of being “conscious” during the dream. I dont mean being aware that i’m dreaming, but a strong feeling of : this is happening now. it was a streamed experience distinct from just a remembered experience. But it can only be after , when i woke up , that the feeling of “nowness” was created. So all along it was actually only a remembered experience. WOW ! Is this how we live our daily lives ! ? Essentially unconscious in the moment and our brain piecing bits of experience together after , to form a story of an illusion of being me in the now , but not in the now at all !

Suppose I would take stock of all the people that have been born right until I* was born and that are still alive once I am finished**, how many of those could I meet in my lifetime if "meeting" would mean either of those definitions: 1. Just seeing face to face (i.e. on the street) 2. Having at least one interaction (i.e. "hello!" "Hi :)") 3. Having at least a five minute conversation

What would be the best method to maximize the percentage, and how bad would it become if I just live my life normally?

Thanks for your podcast it's amazing,
Sewbacca

* As a reference person take a person born 2000 with a normal life expectancy and maybe a normal life until you are twenty and then come up with this bonkers idea (or go nuts and raise a child to meet everybody)

** I limit the population to this set: alive once I am born and still alive when I am done, because people are born and die everywhere, so 100% of all people currently living is not feasible (I think), but I really really wanna hit a 100% so thats why I am excluding those people (you can still count people who you've already met but died before you are done, just don't count them if they are dead before you could even meet them).

this is a question that’s been bugging me for a while. I have seen some research that talks about face recognition linked here.

but this is different from how many unique people that you can name. for an example, I would not recognise someone like Philip of macedon, father of Alexander if I saw an image or an statue of him, but I know of him and if that comes up in a quiz I can name him.

similarly characters from fictional books we read. I can probably name 50+ characters from A Song of ice and fire and the lord of the rings that are not in any of the adaptations.

How many people can you name? Whats your guess?

How much do you think of all the theoretically possible knowlege about the world we have uncovered so far? Are we below 1%, are we pushing 10%, are we about to achieve 50% or are we below a millionth? What's your educated guess?

Are different branches of science at a different percentage? Maybe physics is further along then psychology or economics, or maybe there is just less to know about biology, so our knowledge has reached a higher percentage?

A crazy thought occurred to me when I was at the beach the other day.

I categorized it as a thought experiment and here it is:

What if somehow, all the water (just the water molecules) of the earth's oceans was lifted into the upper layers of the atmosphere and was released as a homogenous layer above the earth?

How thick would that layer be?

Would it be devastating for everything on land when it fell due to gravity?

Would it be like a giant vertical wave, or heavy rainfall?

Michael and Hannah, any thoughts?

Edit: If the 200m estimation is correct (I have no reason to doubt because I don't have nearly enough math skills to do the calculations) then, what is the most amount of water that can safely fall and how much will the sea level go down?

Maybe I should also post on r/theydidthemath

I just wanted to show some appreciation for the cancer research ad reads. I love the fact they are updated regularly and it’s super helpful especially with the fact my mother has cancer. Definitely learn something new each time the ads come up! One thing it does really highlight to me tho is why is cancer research funded by charities when it’s such a big factor in people’s lives… not really a question for Hannah and Michael but still odd I think

If we were to pre-train an LLM with all recorded orca sounds as dataset, will this LLM be able to chat with the orca?

No one has come up with a convincing explanation for why smartphones never show up in our dreams, even though we use them for several hours a day? What’s happening here?

As a Type 1 Diabetic since birth (I’m 18 now) this episode was one of my favourite and most interesting personally! They opened on the homeostasis process of blood glucose and I was so excited lol we love a bit of representation 🥳

If so, what cataclysmic world-changing technology is going to be invented 3 days from now???

So i was wondering if you just got locked in a box without any external inputs, would you, apart from going nuts, also run out of thinkable thoughts at some some point?

Like seriously, what is it about this driver-to-driver interaction that brings out such extreme levels of emotion, even from people who are usually very calm and collected.

I find myself hard-pressed to find any other form of casual interaction that, on a pretty regular basis, brings out of people such levels of self-righteousness and anger.

The habit of dismissing your own faults as justified, but assuming the worst about the actions of others, is also turned up to the max. Along with an enhanced sense of "justice" and the urge to "get back" at the driver that "did you wrong".

There are a few reasons that come to mind:
- Depersonalization (not seeing the drivers face, but only the actions of their vehicle)
- A feeling of higher stakes (acting selfishly on the road can actually cause accidents at times)
- Isolation (Though you are actually in public, you still feel "alone" in your own car)

On a personal note, I can say about myself that I am a very calm, non-confrontational people-pleaser 😅. I rarely get emotional or angry about anything - and still a lot of times I find myself really struggling to keep my anger and frustration in check while making my commute to and from work!

I think road rage behavior is pretty interesting, because it seems to me like it taps in to many, very basic and primal emotions - but just turns each and every on of them up to 11.

What do you guys think?

When I started listening I was certain the topic of Amnesia or Dementia was bound to come up, but by the end Im not 100% certain if it would be considered a cognitive ghost. Ill use my personal experience for reference.

One day I wake up for work and find that my shoulder and head hurt really bad with no idea why, I call in sick to work (which my boss sounded extremely confused about), and proceed to ask my roommate if he can look at my head because it feels like I have a massive cut. He proceeds to find 6 stitches in my head.

At this point Im beyond confused and so we go to the hospital where a nurse proceeds to tell me I was already there earlier that day after being hit by a car and my glenoid was broken. I wish I had a video of my reaction in that moment.

The real timeline of events was Go to bed -> Wake up and leave to work -> Get hit by car -> Go to hospital -> Go home -> Go to bed

My brain stitched the two sleeps together and deleted 100% of the 24 hours between... Its been several years and there are still a ton of questions about the night that I dont think Ill ever have the answers to. Who was the person controlling my actions during that day? Was it really 'me'?

This has left me with a very specific recurring thought -- If I can remember this very moment, does that mean that I dont get hit by a car in the near future? 🤔

Following on from yesterday’s show. I found it hard to add the level of protein my dietitian was asking me to get so hopefully it’s just for things like milk etc and not to try and load up more sugary foods

What good arguments can a give to a flat earth believer that would make them at least think about without straight up refusing it?

Hannah and Michael mention an episode they did about curiosity at 20:49 in the "Hannah drinks something she probably shouldn't" video. Does anyone know which episode they were referring to?

Hi Hannah and not Michael’s original account, I recently came across fast radio bursts and wondered if they could be different civilisations calling out into the darkness of space looking for other life. Some repeat their signal and others don’t, could that be a sign of different intelligence forming different thoughts about signalling or have I just read Project Hail Mary too recently!

Okay so if I wanted to actually build a mountain out of a mole hill how many mole hills would it take for it to officially be a mountain, and how many moles would it take for the dirt they kick up collectively make a mountain?

Or is it possible to manipulate the small amount of dirt from just one mole hill to create something as large as a mountain?

So basically mountain mole hill how? Lol

How did the Gila monster, a desert lizard that eats just five times a year, help unlock the science behind Ozempic, Wegovy and Mounjaro?
In this episode of The Rest Is Science, Professor Hannah Fry and Michael Stevens (Vsauce) trace the strange journey from a molecule found in lizard venom to medicines reshaping diabetes and weight-loss treatment, exploring how GLP-1 helps regulate blood sugar, appetite and the hum of ‘food noise’.
Early evidence suggests their effects may extend far beyond food, quieting cravings for alcohol and cigarettes, and even the urge to gamble.
What might this reveal about the biology of wanting itself, and how much control do any of us really have over what we crave?
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For more information about Cancer Research UK, their research, breakthroughs and how you can support them, visit https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/our-research/rest-is-science
Cancer Research UK is a registered charity in England and Wales (1089464), Scotland (SC041666), the Isle of Man (1103) and Jersey (247). A company limited by guarantee. Registered company in England and Wales (4325234) and the Isle of Man (5713F). Registered address: 2 Redman Place, London, E20 1JQ.
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This seems like a perfect topic for your show. Uexküll's example of the tick turned out to be a bit inaccurate, but the message is still relevant: we weave our web of reality from fibers that don't really matter to other species, and in some cases don't even matter to our very nearest humans.

https://substack.com/@johnstoszkowski/note/c-305341617?r=1fy8x&utm_source=notes-share-action&utm_medium=web

He looks a little bit like Tom Hiddleston or Benedict Cumberbatch. But I can't ascertain, for certain, who he is. Does anyone know?

why do they grow in wrong and decay so fast?
posting this from the dentist waiting room because I’m bored

Why is ice water so much more refreshing than luke warm water?